Join us December Celebration:
Access for All means streets are Open to All.
Car-Free JFK Drive is “Classist’ and Segregationist” Policy. And this is why we must open ALL THE STREETS or bring it to the ballot to allow ALL San Franciscans to vote, thank you President Walton.
Call Newsom: Don’t Tax the Sun
By Sue Vaughan : burningplanet – excerpt
Solar employees and advocates gather at the CPUC in San Francisco on June
There are two major downsides to capitalism. One, in capitalism there are winners and there are losers. And two, the end product of capitalism is an unlivable planet.
One year ago, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. D-San Diego, the David in the so-far failed battle against the Goliaths of Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Doordash, and other exploitative and polluting gig industries, got very confused about who the winners and losers in the energy industry are, and tried to take on a new “enemy” — the California rooftop solar industry..
So their marketing wizards came up with a campaign that argued that lower income Californians who could not afford rooftop solar were subsidizing the rooftop solar of those who could – and who got rebates for returning energy to the grid. Gonzalez sponsored AB 1139, a bill that would have decreased the amount that people with rooftop solar would be paid for the energy they pump into the grid and increased the amount they would have been charged for monthly grid maintenance.(See analysis of donations to state lawmakers at the end of this story.).
Rooftop solar providers, customers, environmentalists, and working class advocates got organized – and the measure didn’t make it out of the Assembly.
But the idea hasn’t gone away. It’s just been moved to the five, unelected members of the California Public Utilities Commission...
On Thursday, June 2, hundreds of rooftop solar installers, rooftop solar customers, environmentalists, and representatives of disadvantaged communities rallied at the CPUC buildings in San Francisco and Los Angeles to protest the newest proposals. The essence of their opposition? Reducing net metering rates (the rebates that go back to entities that pump electricity into the grid from rooftop solar) and raising grid maintenance rates would enrich these utilities at the expense of the planet. Crucially, these proposals would eliminate the financial incentives that homeowners now have to install rooftop solar. Opponents have called the proposals a tax on the sun. They also would have put about 2,000 solar companies out of business and eliminated around 70,000 jobs, according to the California Solar & Storage Association...(more)
Read the rest of the articles linked above for more details on the various players so you will know where to push the matter at the state level. Phil Ting supported AB1139. Call him to let him know where you stand and how likely you are to oppose his next run for office if he continues to support Big Energy companies efforts to kill solar.
In our case, we should also call and send letters to Senator Wiener and Assemblymembers Ting and Haney and any oher people in Sacramento you know. Phone calls to the CPUC directors are also encouraged. See some contact info here: https://discoveryink.wordpress.com/ca-legislative-process
Volunteers power San Francisco Marin Food Bank in mission to end hunger
By KPIX CBS News SF Bay Area
San Francisco Marin Food Bank volunteers at work.
SF Police Union President Steps Down Amid Claims of Financial Impropriety
an Francisco’s police union has turned against its president, pressuring him to resign as rumors of financial impropriety upended his attempt to return to his leadership role from extended medical leave.
Tony Montoya has stepped down as president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, his successor Tracy McCray announced Wednesday in an internal email to officers obtained by The Standard.
Montoya’s departure represents a changing of the guard in a union that tried to rehabilitate its relationship with City Hall under his tenure. Montoya was by no means a champion of reform, but he struck a more conciliatory tone than his predecessors whose vocal criticism earned them a reputation for undermining change…(more)
National Debate Rages Over What the SF School Board Recall Was ‘Really About’
San Francisco is an early-adopter kind of place, and Tuesday’s lopsided vote to recall the school board was among the first of what could become a wave of school board recalls around the country, according to Ballotpedia…
The Standard breaks down the arguments about what the school board recall was “really about.”
It’s the first sign of an ‘anti-woke’ movement that’s going to upend San Francisco politics and make waves in November’s midterms
The digital ink was hardly dry on the city’s election results website when the national stories started raining down on what the recall meant for this year’s midterm elections.
Some national media figures see the results as a harbinger of doom for Democrats. If America’s most progressive city is fed up with social-justice politics, that can only mean the tide has turned nationally–and hard–against policies that proponents say are critical components of a racial reckoning, but which critics dismiss as “wokeness” run wild…
On Sunday, London Breed went on Meet the Press and spoke in support of the misplaced-priorities theory.
“They were focusing on things that were clearly a distraction,” she said. “What was most important was that our kids were not in the classroom.”
The Details of CPUC’s Disastrous Proposal for Updating Net Metering in California
votesolar – excerpt
Californians: Take action now to protect rooftop solar!
The Background
On December 13, 2021, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a proposed decision updating solar net metering. Their proposal would create major new barriers for Californians who want to invest in rooftop solar and battery storage. Net metering is a foundational clean energy policy that allows customers with onsite solar to save on their electric bill by receiving a credit for the excess clean energy they send back to the grid.
The popular policy has helped make California the national leader in rooftop solar adoption, with over 1.3 million solar roofs installed statewide. The December 13th proposal would reverse solar progress by decimating solar bill savings for future solar customers, as well as changing the rules on existing solar customers.
The proposed decision has been in the works for a while. The CPUC, which regulates the state’s investor-owned utilities, opened a proceeding to update net metering back in August 2020. Stakeholders including Vote Solar submitted and debated a range of proposed policy changes, which the Commission considered as it developed the 187-page proposal. Now over a year later, the CPUC released the proposal…
Some of the proposal’s most problematic elements include:…(more)
Non-emergency calls to 911 clog system amid staffing shortfall
By Jerold Chinn : sfbay – excerpt
an Francisco officials are reminding people that they should only dial 911 for life-threatening emergencies as the omicron variant continues to affect staffing at the Fire Department and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said about 10 percent of the department’s workforce, or around 140 people, are currently out after testing positive for Covid-19. Nicholson added that the department is seeing an increase in 911 calls, which she said is “putting a strain on the system.”
The City has been getting over 400 emergency calls a day in the last several days, where typically the city usually gets around 300 to 330 a day, Nicholson said…(more)
How To Stand Up and Fight Back with Our Neighborhood Voices!
Training Video for circulators for Our Neighborhood Voices
Two big Projects Recently Rejected by the Board of Supervisors
Two big projects in District 6 were rejected by the Supervisors. How bad must a project be to be rejected? Read the two Tim Redmond articles that ran in 48hills. Most local media covered this with differing opinions.
In dramatic move, supes block huge luxury housing project in Soma
Debate shows city planners’ utter failure to understand the role of market-rate housing in gentrification and displacement.
In a stunning victory for progressives, the Board of Supes voted 8-3 Tuesday to block a massive market-rate development that would have threatened one of the last affordable areas in Soma.
The vote to overturn the 469 Stevenson EIR doesn’t kill the project, but it’s a major setback and could help advocates who want to use the site for affordable housing…
The vote also showed a new political shift on the board, with Sup. Matt Haney, who represents Soma, joining his more conservative colleagues, Ahsha Safai and Catherine Stefani, in voting to support the project…
The politics of this are fascinating: Haney, who has long been part of the progressive majority on the board, is now running for state Assembly with the strong support of the building trades (and it appears, at least some of the Yimbys—he is featured, along with the mayor, at a VIP reception for a Yimby fundraiser)…
At one point, under questioning, an executive from the developer, Build Inc., acknowledged that there is currently no financing for the project and the company doesn’t even own the land. Founding Partner Lou Vasquez said that he couldn’t predict how much the new units would rent for because “we don’t own the site or have financing in place to build it.
The supes didn’t even know how to respond. “I think that silence is from shock,” Sup. Shamann Walton noted...(more)
In a direct assault on planning policy, supes reject Tenderloin tech dorms
Board makes clear, for perhaps the first time ever, that developer profits should not be a deciding factor in city housing decisions.
The Board of Supes rejected a plan for tech dorms in the Tenderloin yesterday, setting up a challenge for private housing developers who increasingly want to build what’s known as “group housing.”
That term is badly defined in the Planning Code, and potentially creates a massive loophole for market-rate short-term rentals to replace family housing units.
And the supes, by unanimously overruling the Planning Commission—a very rare move—made it clear that they don’t want to see projects get approved, and then substantially changed afterward.…(more)
It appears that someone filed an application to develop someone else’s property, and went through the process of procuring an entitlement, with the help of SF Planning Department staff without involving the property owner in the process. It took an appeal before the Board of Supervisors to discover that the developer does not own the property they are entitled to develop. They have on funding or construction cost analysis and have no idea what the rents may be. How many times has this happened without an appeal being filed and is this a good use of SF Planning staff time and taxpayer money?